Mark Zuckerberg’s New Facebook and Instagram Policy Allows Users to Call LGBTQ+ People Mentally Ill

Amid sweeping changes to Meta's content moderation protocols, the social media conglomerate updated its community standards to specifically allow users to characterize gay and transgender identities as "mental illness."

In the company’s policy about hateful content, it defines a host of “protected characteristics” — which include “race, ethnicity, national origin, disability, religious affiliation, caste, sexual orientation, sex, gender identity and serious disease.”

Under its previous policy, users were forbidden to post content “targeting” a person based on any protected characteristic, such as by calling them “mentally ill,” “retarded,” “crazy” or “insane.”

The updated policy, however, includes a new exception: “We do allow allegations of mental illness or abnormality when based on gender or sexual orientation, given political and religious discourse about transgenderism and homosexuality and common non-serious usage of words like ‘weird.’ ”

Related: Meta Says It's Ending Fact-Checking on Facebook and Instagram — Here's What That Means

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg explained the company's broad policy updates — which also included abandoning their third-party fact-checking program — in a video posted to Instagram on Jan. 7, saying, “It’s time to get back to our roots around free expression on Facebook and Instagram.”

In the video, Zuckerberg said the controversial decision was part of an effort “to simplify our content policies” and scrap “restrictions on topics like immigration and gender that are just out of touch with mainstream discourse.”

“What started as a movement to be more inclusive has increasingly been used to shut down opinions and shut out people with different ideas, and it’s gone too far,” the CEO added. “I want to make sure that people can share their beliefs and experiences on our platform.”

Many Meta staffers are furious about Zuckerberg's sudden policy shift, according to a report by 404 Media, which cited internal workplace conversations and interviews with five anonymous employees.

“It’s total chaos internally at Meta right now,” one employee told the outlet. “I’d call the mood shock and disbelief… It’s embarrassment and shame that feels self-inflicted, different than mistakes the company has made in the past.”

“Obviously the employees who identify as being part of the LGBTQ+ community are especially unhappy and feel the most unsupported in this,” said another employee, according to 404 Media. “A small number of people are taking time off and are sharing that they are considering leaving the company due to this change.”

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404 Media reports that one employee posted "I am LGBT and Mentally Ill" on an internal Meta platform, adding, "Just to let you know that I'll be taking time out to look after my mental health."

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In addition to changing the kinds of content that it forbids on its platforms, Meta will also “tune” its content filters to “require much higher confidence before taking down content,” Zuckerberg said in his announcement.

Though he called the decision a “trade off,” admitting that the filter would “catch less bad stuff,” he said it would also reduce the amount of posts the company accidentally takes down.

“The problem is that the filter makes mistakes, and they take down a lot of content that they shouldn’t,” said Zuckerberg. “By dialing them back, we’re going to dramatically reduce the amount of censorship on our platforms.”

PEOPLE reached out to Meta for comment about the policy change and its reception among employees.

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